


To Be Alone With You

by Suzume



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Blind Roy, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Post Promised Day, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4124626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzume/pseuds/Suzume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is the colonel; she is the lieutenant.  But sometimes lines blur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Be Alone With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Unsaid](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3552536) by Anonymous. 



> Or: To Be Alone With You (the never felt so alive remix)

         "I have a second bedroom, you know." He was thinking of how, in the crush and hurry to tend to the many wounded as quickly as possible, they had wound up sharing a hospital room. How, on account of his personal preference and a lack of objections from the lieutenant, they had gone on sharing it after more space had opened up. How good and comfortable and just _right_ it had felt to be alone together like that. Roy thought all those things, a whole armory's worth of feelings that he could hardly put into words that sounded sincere, and blurted out something snappy instead. Like he usually did. He had turned any number of people off in this way over the years, sometimes purposely, sometimes not.

         But the lieutenant was different. When he asked where she would be staying, seeing as she had already learned that her apartment had been destroyed in the fray (Catalina had already taken charge of Hayate), and then, without waiting for a response, asked if she might like to stay a while longer with him, she said yes.

 

         Roy thought on how convenient it had been that they were discharged from the hospital on the same day as he wordlessly accepted the lieutenant's help to climb into the passenger side of his car without hitting his head. Breda had brought the car around for them earlier that morning when their release seemed likely and made sure they were both aware he could make himself available if either of them needed any extra help. If the lieutenant had said no to his offer, it wasn't as if he would've been left alone and she knew that. The team he had built was like that. Whoever was in need, someone would be there to have their back.

         The radio came on with the growl of the engine. News. The lieutenant flipped it off almost immediately.

         It was rare being a passenger in his own car, but perhaps it was easier to sit back passively in his current state. Without his sight there was no desire to backseat-drive. The seat felt comfortable, if not exactly familiar. The scent, on the other hand. This was one of his own spaces, where he had brought with him the smells of his favorite cologne and too many flowers, of coffee, of sandwiches, or whatever lingering traces of alchemy ashes or alcohol clung to his clothes and hair.

         The lieutenant drove smoothly. Fast, Roy thought, though he wasn't used to this yet, being shuffled about in vehicles and never able to peek out the window, so he wasn't sure how well he could judge. In a way it took him back to being a very small child, to the fragments of his life remembered from before he came into the care of Aunt Chris. Roy hated not being in control. At this point, he couldn't even maintain an illusion of such (and a frightened voice in the back of his head kept telling him 'you might be like this forever' and even if that was true- he hoped it wasn't- being blind didn't make a person helpless, but logic could feel like a peashooter when brandished against the giant of one's fear), but if he was to cede control of any part of himself and his life to another person…

         He turned his head toward the lieutenant, for all the difference it would make (but he was accustomed to it). He trusted her more than anyone in the world.

         …he had trusted Maes like that too. He didn't want to think about if he had survived without her. That was one nightmare he hadn't been forced to live.

         The car stopped with more finality than a mere pause at a red light. There was the sound of the brake being set. "We've arrived, sir." The driver's side door opened and closed. Roy set his hand on the handle, but, slow with hesitation, the lieutenant was the one to open it for him. Her fingers barely grazed him, but it even that was an intoxicatingly rare bit of touch. It was enough for her to steer him safely.

         -Until he stumbled on what should have been the most familiar step, just past her unlocking the door and letting him through. And he barely feared for falling before her arm caught around his back, secure. Roy shifted to regain his balance and smiled, true and small, as rare as the sincere invitation he had botched earlier, but easier to deliver at will. "Thank you." Choosing to trust her years ago had scarcely been a decision, but that didn't stop it from being one of his better ones.

         The lieutenant's arm remained in place, lingering in a way Roy hadn't expected, directing his thoughts in directions they weren't meant to go. Perhaps he should have asked someone else to stay with him (but the closer they got the harder it was to let her go).

         He coughed and moved slightly- a subtle cue. The lieutenant took away her arm, but Roy could imagine the gentle pressure against him still.

         "I'll show you to the guest room." Roy took a step forward and this time the floor behaved. Another successful step and he gained confidence. This was his apartment after all. Whatever obstacles he faced here would not be surprises. Hadn't he paced about enough in the darkness- or near to it- to gauge the approximate locations of his various pieces of furniture? When his fingers felt the couch, he found himself slouching with relief. A single apartment- though, admittedly, a nice one- the miniature kingdom of the man who would be führer (or maybe not, he feared, but if not, then there were worse realms to rule than this).

         "Would you like anything?" he offered, "Food? Or water," he corrected himself, "I'm not sure I have I have any food right now that hasn't gone bad." It was one of the combined hazards of planning a coup and having a penchant for eating out- simple enough to wind up with nothing more in the ice box than a jar of mustard and half a turkey on rye from two days before the eclipse.

         The lieutenant was as self-sufficient (if that was what it should be called) as ever. "I don't need anything, sir. And," she continued, "I'm sure I can find the room myself, if you tell me which one it is."

         "It's the second one to the left of the kitchen." He stroked the back of the couch. Vanessa had helped him pick it out after the move. "There's a green quilt. The one in my room is blue." He would have liked to said something else, but what could he say now that wouldn't sound trite? At least mundane statements about the colors of his quilts could be taken at face value. They didn't have to express the inexpressible - that they're here, that they've survived, how grateful he is for all that...

         There was no sound to indicate the lieutenant had moved at all following his instructions, for all that her movements tended toward the soft and soundless. "Do you need anything, sir?" she asked, calm as could be.

         "No," Roy answered reflexively then reached out- how close by was she? He thought of changing his mind, of asking for something he shouldn't ask. Not too much. Not crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, but smudging them a little. Plausible deniability. They were both here. They were both alive. Could he hold her hand?

         In Ishval, the constant proximity of death had impressed an immeasurable awareness of living upon him. The first time the feeling came upon him, Roy could hardly imagine how, having been so enlightened, it could ever fade, but it was just an inevitable part of being human. No one could feel that way constantly. The rush of 'living' would eventually diminish to merely 'being.' Things gained meaning through contrast. Such a thrill could exist alongside the ordinary, if not monotony.

         Of course, in Ishval, what comprised the ordinary was an upside-down world unto itself, but assuming that ordinary was composed of weeks of boredom and caution and violence interspersed with sudden death there would always be an attraction to curiosity and ease and gentle touches and sudden consciousness of the supreme wonder of being alive.

         He had kissed Maes once in Ishval, flush with that explosive joy of living. It could have been a career-altering slip-up, but young Major-Equivalent Pippin, to Roy's knowledge the sole person who had seen, had only pinked at the tips of his ears and looked away.

         Roy clenched his fingers into a fist and let it fall to his side. Wanting to build that bridge of words, to tell the lieutenant, "Yes, there might be something you could do for me," was not enough. For the chance to gain other things down the road, there were things they had to go on denying themselves now (Roy had to go on believing he might still have that chance). "I should go to bed," he said, urging himself to leave this heightened situation behind and let the lieutenant be.

         This time, however, she proved the one more loath to let the moment pass. "I should check the room first, sir. Just in case it's been compromised."

         He couldn't believe it. That had to be the flimsiest excuse he had ever heard out of the lieutenant and he snorted, surprised and amused, even as he chose to play along, waving her ahead to make a sweep of his bedroom. How likely was it after the Promised Day that some threat remained to fell him here?

         But he didn't want to let her go. If the lieutenant were providing the excuses, he would make up something to back them up. A man's life was in the most danger when he least expected it, right? In Ishval, people had tended to think those feelings regarding the thin line between life and death were different for the State Alchemists; however, that was not quite so. Their wildly superior firepower didn't necessarily offer make any significant assurances as far as defense; their importance as weapons led to orders for the troops they commanded to serve doubly as extensive security details, as though they were mortars or battlements of particular strategic importance. They were as human and vulnerable as any other troops. Some of them had suffered significant wounds during the war. There was, to the best of Roy's knowledge, just one who had died.

         The experience of the State Alchemists in the field tended toward the solitary, spread out to bleed the enemy land into submission with the greatest possible speed, but occasionally a colleague (usually one new to actual military discipline and action; someone with a lower profile than Grand or Kimblee or Ventura) would be assigned alongside him. Mitsch was demure. McDougal was taciturn. Perry was scientifically rigorous. All three were dead now, but whatever their strengths and weaknesses, they had survived Ishval.

         The lieutenant moved quietly about his room, further away, and then back toward him, until finally she stopped.

         "Am I safe to enter?" he continued on, smiling, playing his part in this charming act of over-caution.

         "The scene is secure."

         Roy laughed. It wasn't as if Elizabeth over the telephone hadn't also been something of a game, but this was several shades stranger. He walked to the bed, close, closer, and allowed his leg to bump up against it, then stood there, waiting.

         Pippin was the alchemist who hadn't made it, though he wasn't lost under Roy's watch. It had happened near a major encampment. The lieutenant had seen it through the sights of her rifle.

         They had only talked about it once. He hadn't told her how some other time following that day with Maes, after a long night under heavy fire, he had found himself alone with Pippin. He had taken off his gloves and Pippin had reached out to touch his bare hand, fingers coiling slightly around Roy's own. He hadn't had feelings for Major-Equivalent Pippin like Maes, like the lieutenant- he had barely known the man, but there had been something in that moment, skin against skin. He should have smiled for olive-eyed Pippin as smoke from his flames curled across the quieted sky. He should have said he was glad they were both alive.

         All these things passed through his mind and the lieutenant stayed frozen in place. Did she feel she needed permission to go? Roy supposed there was that still. He outranked her. He could dismiss her. He coughed, then tried to assure her of his gratitude with a few simple words, while also reminding her of his availability should she need anything in the course of her stay. Yes, for now, that would be it. He might not sleep, but he would lie down to think, to try and put together words for her, that might not be enough (all his words of love had never saved Maes), but at least be something.

         He waited, but she didn't go. "Lieutenant?"

         No, "Lieutenant" wasn't right, or, rather, it wasn't enough. "Riza?" he asked quietly.

         Her hand, closer than he'd realized, settled on his shoulder. A small hand for all it could do, for all the power it held over him. He turned his head toward it, glad for this touch and anxious for what might follow.

         Her other hand touched his cheek and he leaned into it, melted by this intimacy. Her fingers slid slowly from his shoulder to his neck, up to his cheek, back through his hair to the back of his head. He's enrapt. Does she know, he wonders. Does she purposely forget herself? Does she want to be reminded?

         "Lieutenant," he says.

         She kisses him and all the wanting that he's spent years tamping down, flares up in him. She kisses him again and he thinks what he hasn't just out and said: "I'm so glad we're alive." Rather, "Riza," he whispers, voice rough with feeling.

         He lets her take command of him, push him onto the bed, climb on top of him, though she doesn't say a word, only kisses him again. Maybe this is different than with Pippin and he doesn't need to give voice to anything. Hasn't she always understood him better than anyone, even without words, even around them?

         Her body pressed against him- Her lips matching his in hunger-

         For one night. For one night, can't they have this? Her hands guiding him to undo the buttons on her shirt agree. Her skin was warm. Roy's hand slid up between her breasts and he could feel her heart pounding in her chest. His heart was racing too, another beacon of life in this sea of darkness.

         This was real. They were alive.

 

*

 

         Roy had always dreamt in color, but, perhaps without the hues of the physical world available for comparison, the ones he saw in his sleep turned even more vivid to compensate. His mind filled with sunflowers, the large ones, with seed-filled centers larger than his fingers outspread, that grew taller than most men. The sort of sunflowers that he had never seen in person until he'd gone away to study under Master Hawkeye. Country sunflowers, that put to shame the scraggly roadside things that crept up in the cracks between buildings struggling to life in and around the city.

         In the dream he lay on the ground, amidst the dirt and sunflower stalks and smaller plants that still managed to live in their shade, alongside Riza, and it must have been a jacket of hers spread beneath them because even in a dream he would have been hard-pressed to make such a concession to his massive vanity as lying one of his specially tailored pieces down like that.

         He felt hot- not from the sun filtering down between the flowers, but more flushed, warm from within. He was holding Riza's hand.

         In the distance, he could hear someone whistling. Or maybe it was the sound of a tea kettle.

        

         Roy awoke and the dream faded in fragments. The relaxed sort of feeling hanging over him wasn't unfounded. He could tell this was his own familiar bed now, not some half asleep longing to be there that he allowed himself to wallow in momentarily from his place in the hospital.

         Memories of his escort from the night before returned to him. Of an offer of his second bedroom never fully acted upon.

         Riza wasn't in the bed with him (she was quiet enough, but he didn't hear anything; she was light enough, but the mattress didn't droop under anyone else's weight). The further he ran his fingertips over the sheets, the more they'd grown cold.

         However, the lieutenant was not only ever punctual, but a habitual early riser. He didn't have to live alongside her to know that. Wherever they needed to be, she always reached the appointed place before him.

         He groped about to dress, certain that none of his clothes would clash badly enough to embarrass him all that much in front of the lieutenant and that she would address any errors in his outfit before anyone else might see them. In the bathroom, he gave his hair a haphazard once-through with a comb, then ventured toward the kitchen, feeling his way along with one hand on the wall.

         The sound of a mug hitting his table was unforgettable for all that he was usually barely conscious of it. "Lieutenant," he said. Who else could it be? Roy knew he hadn't dreamed that part.

         "Colonel," she responded, simple as that, "Would you like some coffee?"

         He smiled, and, like so many other things unspoken between them, the lieutenant understood. He listened as she poured him a mug, then gently came and placed it in his hands. "Thank you." The moment had passed and they returned to their usual roles and the other hills they had yet to climb, but no one would begrudge two off duty officers a small chat over their coffee. He wondered what sort of look the lieutenant had on her face.


End file.
